Princess Leia tells us that 20 new Clone Wars episodes are signed for and will debut in the Spring of 2005, just prior to the release of Episode III. We would speculate that the animators will get to see the final movie at a screening shortly and develop the plot closely tied to the new movie. We're also hearing that a Clone Wars DVD release is a pending announcement, though we're not sure if both "seasons" will be included or first only. More soon!

That's pretty cool news, if it pans out. Took me a while to warm up to the whole CW idea, but after watching the first set of cartoons, I'm definitely up for some more. Hopefully that means they'll put a few more of the animated figures out as well, since there's still some glaring holes in that collection that I'd love to fill.

Cool news, now that it's official! The only real constructive criticisms that I heard on Season 1 was the brief running time, so it's nice to see they listened to the fans and adjusted that to five 12 minute episodes, instead of the twenty 3 minute episodes. I probably would've been a little happier with ten 6 minute episodes though, since only five episodes seems a little too quick. Same thing though...

Looking forward to them. Hope they don't go too overboard with that lame Grievous character though! Hopefully a complete DVD of all the episodes, and another wave or two of the animated figures isn't too far behind...

I like the Cartoon figures and don't really care for the real ones...huh

THought parts of the first Series were pretty dumb but most of it was top notch stuff. Not a huge fan of the animation style but it worked fine. Great idea to have this be the countdown to Episode III instead of the Hololink stuff they tried for Episode II

SilverZ

At 12 minute runtimes we should be getting some much more plot-driven episodes, especially so close to the movie release. That should be cool.

I have a hard time seeing how we'll get new figures in the same timeframe though. It would mean Target would be stocking a new, non-Episode 3 line literally 2-3 weeks before the assumed Ep3 figures hit. Not that I don't want them. I just have a bad feeling about it.

I'm really happy to hear about this too, especially with some longer running times. I thought that the first season was pretty cool, even though it did have its cheezy moments, and I really did enjoy it. Like it was said above, it is a nice way to lead into Episode III too. I'm up for some more animated figures too, I kind of liked the first 8 we got...something a little "different" for the collection if nothing else.

I have a hard time seeing how we'll get new figures in the same timeframe though. It would mean Target would be stocking a new, non-Episode 3 line literally 2-3 weeks before the assumed Ep3 figures hit. Not that I don't want them. I just have a bad feeling about it.

it all depends on which characters they want to make. and it all depends on where in the timeline these cartoon episodes are supposed to take place.

if they make the cartoon timeline take place right before episode 3 - say like 6 months - then you would basically get episode 3 figures in cartoon style, again depending on which characters they choose to make. i would think that they would put most of the characters from the movie into these cartoons if the timeline was close enough, just for that reason.